Con­trib­u­tors

We asked the Plaza Watch panel of ex­perts… What is your favourite an­niver­sary or an­nual event?

Ni­cholas Foulkes is the au­thor of around 20 books on sub­jects as di­verse as James Bond, porce­lain and the trench coat. He also con­trib­utes to a wide range of news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines around the world. He is a colum­nist for Coun­try Life, a con­tribut­ing ed­i­tor to The FT’s How To Spend It Mag­a­zine, a con­tribut­ing ed­i­tor to Van­ity Fair, and lux­ury ed­i­tor of Bri­tish GQ. He launched and con­tin­ues to edit Van­ity Fair’s twice yearly watch mag­a­zine On Time.

My sum­mer hol­i­day!

2. El­iz­a­beth Do­err

El­iz­a­beth’s 20 years in lux­ury watch pub­lish­ing has now cul­mi­nated in the found­ing of Quil­landPad.com – an on­line mag­a­zine that “keeps a watch on time.” Aside from reg­u­lar con­tri­bu­tions to nu­mer­ous high-qual­ity print mag­a­zines, books and web­sites all over the world, El­iz­a­beth re­leased her first in­de­pen­dent book in early 2010. The In­ter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune called 12 Faces of Time a “love let­ter” to in­de­pen­dent watch­mak­ing. A mem­ber of the pres­ti­gious Cul­tural Com­mit­tee of the Fon­da­tion de la Haute Hor­logerie, El­iz­a­beth is also on the jury of the Grand Prix d’Hor­logerie de Genève.

My fa­vorite an­nual event is Amer­i­can Thanks­giv­ing, which is cel­e­brated on the last Thurs­day of Novem­ber ev­ery year. It needs no prepa­ra­tion beyond mak­ing yummy food, there are no gifts ex­changed, and loved ones come to­gether, some­times for the only time dur­ing an en­tire year.

3. Michaela Larosse

Michaela is a free­lance jour­nal­ist and ad­ver­tis­ing copy­writer who spe­cialises in writ­ing about brand­ing, me­dia, lux­ury life­style, cul­ture and all is­sues re­lated to the cre­ative in­dus­tries.

Liv­ing in the north of the Eng­land, where dark win­ter days oc­cur far too of­ten, it's good to see the Win­ter Sol­stice, or short­est day, come around – gen­er­ally fall­ing on the 20th/21st De­cem­ber. From then on ev­ery day gets a tiny bit lighter and longer than the one be­fore, edg­ing slowly to­wards spring.

4. Josh Sims

Josh Sims is a London-based free­lance writer and ed­i­tor con­tribut­ing to the likes of the Fi­nan­cial Times, the Times and Wall­pa­per, among oth­ers. He's the au­thor of sev­eral books on men's style and ed­i­tor of the forth­com­ing 'As­ton Martin: 100 Years'.

Not ex­actly an an­nual event I en­joy, but the one with the most im­pact is the day be­fore the first day back at work after New Year. It's like that Sun­day gloom dur­ing one's school days, when Mon­day brings French and dou­ble physics, times a hun­dred. Grim.

5. To­mas Monka

Monka is a ded­i­cated pho­tog­ra­pher look­ing for the per­fect com­bi­na­tion of light and el­e­gance in ev­ery­thing that comes in front of his cam­era. Like an il­lu­sion­ist, he fools us with images that are beyond re­al­ity. “It is a fact that I spend the most time with my cam­era! Sad but true. Although I have not named her yet, maybe that is some­thing I must do in the near fu­ture."

Nor­mally, I'm not a big fan of an­niver­saries but if I had to choose one, I would say with­out hes­i­ta­tion my girl­friend's birth­day! I just love to spoil her. Some­thing that she de­serves many times a year.